Author: Freedom Fellowship

During the Thanksgiving break, we will be taking a group from the church to the warehouse where all of the Operation Christmas Child boxes are being delivered and prepared to be shipped all over the world. We always have a great time at the warehouse working as a team to prepare boxes for shipping. We’ll grab something to eat on the way home. You need to come try this with us if you’ve never done it before! It’s a very rewarding experience.

Our Youth Leadership Team will be getting together after church today to determine where we will go to Summer Camp and Mission Trip in 2019. If you would like to have any input, please plan to attend.

We will grab lunch right after the worship service is over and bring it back to the church and eat together before the meeting.

Come join us as we build and pack boxes for Operation Christmas Child. Bring as much stuff as you can to help fill as many boxes as we can.

Items to bring: dolls, soccer balls with a manual pump, stuffed animals, outfit of clothing, small musical instrument (such as a harmonica or woodwind recorder), backpacks, combs, hairbrushes, toothbrushes, washcloths, bar soap (packaged and/or in a container), adhesive bandages (colorful ones can help a child be more willing to wear a bandage – do not include liquid antibiotic ointment), reusable plastic containers (cups, water bottles, plates, bowls, blunt-edged utensils), consider filling empty containers with non-liquid items such as hair bows, bracelets, sunglasses, or washcloths to maximize the space), blankets, non-liquid lip balm, flashlights (solar-powered or hand-crank; if battery operated, be sure to include extra batteries of the type needed), compact mirrors, nail clippers and files, stick deodorant, washable/reusable cloth menstrual pads, small toys, small craft items, school supplies, etc.

Items not to bring: candy, toothpaste, gum, used or damaged items, war-related items such as toy guns, knives, or military figures, chocolate or food, seeds, fruit rolls or other fruit snacks, drink mixes (powdered or liquid), liquids or lotions, medications or vitamins, breakable items such as snow globes or glass containers, aerosol cans.

CAN-OR-TREAT: Our youth will be going door to door in Roanoke and Trophy Club collecting canned food to benefit the Roanoke Food Pantry.

For persons who have recently lost a loved one, the Thanksgiving and Christmas Season can be especially difficult. Surviving The Holidays is a seminar to help persons who are coping with the loss of a loved one make it through the Holiday season.  For more info, visit the Grief Share national website at  https://www.griefshare.org/holidays  

From Oswald Chambers, Utmost for His Highest, September 11

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. —John 13:14

Ministering in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings— it means being God’s very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.

The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.

Jesus said, “I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.

Do you find yourself responding by saying, “Oh, I will do all that once I’m out on the mission field”? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield— you will be killed while trying to do it.

We have to go the “second mile” with God (see Matthew 5:41). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, “Well, I’ll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life.” But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.

Thanksgiving holiday

Come join us for a special time of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas with our family and friends.  It’s a great way to help us maintain our focus on God’s most precious gift during a very special time of year.

Meet at the Roanoke Food Pantry (108 Pecan St.) at 8:30am to help with the distribution of food and gifts to needy families in our area.  

The first and third Saturdays of every month, our youth group cleans the church, inside and out.  This is another great way to serve our Lord and serve our spiritual family.